"The King," said one, in 1515, "is a youngling, cares for nothing but girls and hunting, and wastes his father's patrimony."[329] "He gambled," reported Giustinian in 1519, "with the French hostages, occasionally, it was said, to the amount of six or eight thousand ducats a day."[330] In the following summer Henry rose daily at four or five in the morning and hunted till nine or ten at night; "he spares," said Pace, "no pains to convert the sport of hunting into a martyrdom".[331] "He devotes himself," wrote Chieregati, "to accomplishments and amusements day and night, is intent on nothing else, and leaves business to Wolsey, who rules everything."[332] Wolsey, it was remarked by Leo X., made Henry go hither and thither, just as he liked,[333] and the King signed State papers without knowing their contents.

"Writing," admitted Henry, "is to me somewhat tedious and painful."[334] When Wolsey thought it essential that autograph letters in Henry's hand should be sent to other crowned heads, he composed the letters and sent them to Henry to copy out.[335] Could the most constitutional monarch have been more dutiful?
But constitutional monarchy was not then invented, and it is not surprising that Giustinian, in 1519, found it impossible to (p.

122) say much for Henry as a statesman.

_Agere cum rege_, he said, _est nihil agere_;[336] anything told to the King was either useless or was communicated to Wolsey.

Bishop West was sure that Henry would not take the pains to look at his and Worcester's despatches; and there was a widespread impression abroad and at home that the English King was a negligible quantity in the domestic and foreign affairs of his own kingdom.
[Footnote 329: _L.